How to feel better in your body right now!

Disclaimer: This post has nothing to do with drinking more water, eating “better,” exercising more, or losing weight quickly (or at all).

If you’re imparting on a journey to make your body look different so that you can finally like it, I hate to tell you this, but even once your body looks the way you think you want it to, if you entered the journey not liking your body, you will probably end it feeling the same.

So what are 5 things you can do RIGHT NOW to start actually liking your body?

Unfollow anything and anyone on social media that makes you feel badly about yourself. Start following body-positive accounts (one of my favorites is @noairbrushedme on Instagram).

Educate yourself on the body positive and fat positive movements. Look for people and accounts that are inclusive and supportive of all body types.

Take time to thank your body daily for all that it does for you.

Spend time being in your body, truly feeling what it feels like in your body. This can be done through meditation or mindfulness during exercise or daily activities.

Take some time each day to write down a thing or two that you like or appreciate about your body.

If you’re thinking right now, yeah, that’s all good and nice and warm and fuzzy, but I want to be healthier, and if I just like my body how it is, I won’t do the things to make that happen, then think about if you’re more likely to do nice things for people you like? Do think that perhaps loving your body might be the key to treating it better that has been missing, and that this self-hatred has caused all of your attempts to restrict yourself into some perfect image to fail up until this point? That all the stress you put on yourself to do things perfectly might be making you less instead of more healthy? That you’ve actually been doing things with the goal to look healthy instead of feel healthy and have therefore actually been taking yourself farther from true health?

The truth is out there: Diets cause more harm than good (Look into the weight regain of Biggest Loser contestants after the show, Linda Bacon’s Healthy at Every Size protocol, Caroline Dooner’s The F It Diet, the Minnesota Starvation experiments, etc.). Someone who is physically active and “overweight” is healthier than someone who is sedentary and “normal” weight.